1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to disk players and, more particularly, to a self-compensating balancer for a disk player that is capable of preventing internal vibrations caused by eccentric center of mass of a disk and a turntable combined therewith.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, disk players, for recording information on recording media such as compact disks (CDs), CD-ROMs, digital versatile disks (DVDs) and for reproducing recorded information from the recording media, must protect the disks and optical pickups from external shock and internal vibration.
In general, as shown in FIG. 1, a disk player includes a vertically rotatable deck base 10 hinged to a housing, a deck plate 20 combined with the deck base 10, a spindle motor 21 installed on the deck plate 20 for providing rotary power to a disk 1, and a turntable 23 combined with a rotating shaft 22 of the spindle motor 21, on which the disk 1 is loaded. Also included are a damper 40 and an optical pickup 25, which are installed on the upper internal surface of the housing so as to face the turntable 23. Here, the damper 40 clamps the disk 1 to the turntable 23. The optical pickup 25 is combined with the deck plate 20 so that the optical pickup 25 can be transferred in the radial direction of the disk 1, during recording and reproducing operations.
A damper 30 is installed between the deck base 10 and the deck plate 20. The damper 30 absorbs external vibrations directly transmitted to the deck plate 20, the spindle motor 21, and the optical pick-up 25, through the deck base 10. The damper 30 is formed of a material such as soft rubber or polyurethane.
The disk player having the above structure can effectively protect the disk 1 and the optical pick-up 25 from an external shock. However, a method of easing the internal vibration caused by the eccentric mass of the disk 1 during the rotation of the spindle motor 21 has not been considered. The disk 1 has an eccentric center of mass caused by a discordance between the center of gyration of the disk 1 and the centroid of the disk 1 caused by errors in the manufacturing processes thereof. The rotating shaft 22 of the spindle motor 21 revolves due to the eccentric mass of the disk 1, during the rotation of the disk 1. The influence of the revolution of the rotating shaft 22 does not have a significant effect in a low-speed model such as 1xc3x97 and 2xc3x97speed models. However, the eccentric rotation does make it difficult to record information on and reproduce information from the recording media in a high-speed model such as a 6xc3x97 or 8xc3x97speed model.
In order to solve the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a self-compensating balancer for a disk player and a turntable combined with the same, which are capable of preventing internal vibrations caused by an eccentric mass of a disk during high-speed rotation.
To achieve the above object, there is provided a self-compensating balancer for a disk player, comprising a supporting plate fixed to a shaft rotated by a spindle motor for supporting rotary power to a disk, pivot pins installed in the supporting plate, two or more pendulums arranged around the supporting plate, and connectors for connecting the pendulums to the pivot pins. The connectors are operative to be elastically transformed so that the centroid of the pendulums faces the centroid of the disk, centered around the rotating shaft of the spindle motor, due to a centrifugal force, during the rotation of the disk.
The connectors are preferably thin strings that can be bent by an external force.
One or more connectors are preferably formed of nylon resin that can be bent by the external force.
To achieve the above object, there is provided a turntable combined with a self-compensating balancer for a disk player, comprising a seating unit, having a protrusion to which the central hole of a disk is combined and rotated in combination with the rotating shaft of a motor. A supporting plate is fixed to the rotating shaft so as to be separated from the seating unit by a predetermined distance and a plurality of pendulums are interposed between the seating unit and the supporting plate, such that the pendulums do not interfere with each other. A plurality of pivot pins are installed between the seating unit and the supporting plate. Connectors are provided for connecting the pivot pins to the pendulums. The connectors are capable of being elastically transformed so that a centroid of the pendulums faces a centroid of the disk centering around the rotating shaft during the rotation of the disk and, thus, the internal vibration caused by the eccentric mass of the disk is prevented.